How To Pray for the President

This Sermon was originally written by Greg Presley, Evangelist and founder of A Voice for Today Ministries. This version has been updated and edited by Earl Presley, A Voice For Today Ministries.

1 Timothy 2:1-7

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.
This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all--this was attested at the right time. For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

SUBJECT:  A Prayer for Security

TEXT:  Psalm 72

INTRODUCTION:  

          Paul's first letter to Timothy continues with an exhortation to pray. Paul is not speaking of perfunctory prayer but of fervent prayer: supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings for everyone. . Paul exhorted them to pray for everyone, even the government that many experienced as oppressive. Paul's reason for praying for the government is not grounded in civic sentimentality, but rather in the need for peace so that the gospel might spread without hindrance. The Early Church Fathers understood this well and defended the need to pray for world leaders. Tertullian exhorted his audience to pray for their enemies and to beg for blessings for their persecutors
(Apology 31.1-2).
The remaining verses contain a theology of salvation, a reminder that Jesus came in the flesh, and another reminder that God's salvation is for all -- Jews and gentiles alike (Galatians 3:28). Chrysostom elaborated on Paul's instructions with these words: "Do not be afraid to pray for the Gentiles. God himself wills it. Fear only to pray against anyone. For that God does not will.”

Each year, it seems brings some new national crisis.

John Kennedy was killed in Dallas. 

          We were already involved in the affairs of Viet Nam. 

          I saw that situation become a full-fledged war under Lyndon Johnson.

          During the Johnson administration I saw the Civil Rights movement change America and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr.

                    The Crosses are Burning on the Parsonage Lawn. 

          During this administration I saw the war against poverty lost.

          The Nixon Years scarred America. 

                    “Watergate” became the code name of the loss of confidence in                     the Presidency of the United States of America as an Institution. 

          Viet Nam still raged and our bravest young men continued to die.

          Jimmy Carter did little to restore confidence in the presidency.  He could not get his programs enacted by the Congress and his inability to get anything done further eroded the prestige of the nation’s highest office.  The

Iranian Hostage situation painted a dismal picture of America under siege.

         

          Ronald Reagan’s very strength brought us into crises in world affairs and foreign policy.  Out of this struggle has come the dismantling of Communism throughout the world but every victory has been a crisis.

          George Bush faced his greatest crisis in the sands of the desert of Kuwait.  War seemed imminent on Veteran’s Day, 1990. What a mess!

          The Exxon Valdez dumped millions of gallons of oil in a pristine bay of Alaska.

          Bill Clinton brought both prosperity and humiliation to America.  His intelligence and hubris brought economic growth and the world’s ridicule.

          George W Bush let faulty intelligence and a personal agenda lead us into a way that, at best, was a mistake.  We face the greatest Crisis in recent history in Afghanistan and Iraq. It remains to be seen what the result of this crisis will be.  We are at war with terror, whoever that is!  We are at war on many fronts. 

Now President Obama, is faced with war in Afghanistan, an economy nearing a fiscal cliff, natural disaster in the Northeast US, and unemployment still at 7.9%. In addition, there is the threat of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.  Our president, our country, and our community is in crisis!

          We need a great president!  I am not qualified to sit in judgment of any of the presidents I have mentioned--each one has had to survive their own crises.  I am qualified, however, and authorized--even called--to lead you to become involved in salvaging the confidence lost in the presidency and our country. 

I call you to prayer!  As Paul exhorts Timothy to pray for Ceasar, I hope to persuade you to pray for the President of the United States and our country believing that praying for him will make him a better president. 

Reasons for failing to pray for the president:

(1) A lack of concern for the presence of God in our Government,

(2) An inability to express to God what we really feel about the president.

(3) Divisive nature of our two party system.

(4) Racism

I hope that we, by looking to an ancient prayer for a King of Israel, will be able to voice our desires to God for the nation and recognize that the success of our president must be among our greatest desires.

The prayer I have chosen is the seventy-second Psalm. 

TEXT (Psalm 72) for the coronation of Solomon

The Reign of the Righteous King

A Psalm for Solomon.

1  Give the king thy judgments, O God,

and thy righteousness unto the king's son.

2  He shall judge thy people with righteousness,

and thy poor with judgment.

3  The mountains shall bring peace to the people,

and the little hills, by righteousness.

4  He shall judge the poor of the people,

he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.

5  They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure,

throughout all generations.

6  He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass:

as showers that water the earth.

7  In his days shall the righteous flourish;

and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.

8  He shall have dominion also from sea to sea,

and from the river unto the ends of the earth. Zech. 9.10

9  They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him;

and his enemies shall lick the dust.

10  The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents:

the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.

11  Yea, all kings shall fall down before him:

all nations shall serve him.

12  For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth;

the poor also, and him that hath no helper.

13  He shall spare the poor and needy,

and shall save the souls of the needy.

14  He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence:

and precious shall their blood be in his sight.

15  And he shall live,

and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised.

16  There shall be a handful of corn in the earth

upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.

17  His name shall endure for ever:

his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.

18  Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel,

who only doeth wondrous things.

19  And blessed be his glorious name for ever:

and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen, and Amen.

20  The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.        

This Psalm may be the work of a poet who read it at the coronation, much as the poem by Sandburg was read at the inauguration of John Kennedy in 1960.  The poet has offered a prayer for the king that states to the king as well as to God, the needs and the wishes of the people.  As we pray for our President, we must pray in a way that will present our national and personal need, our physical need.  We must pray believing that God can answer our prayer through the president.  Let us pray for the security that America and its President symbolizes to us and to the world.

I. PRAY THAT THE PRESIDENT WILL PROVIDE MORAL SECURITY, (v.1-4).

          The king of Israel was to the people both the symbol and vehicle of God’s Justice, Righteousness, and peace.  It is not surprising that the poet asks God to give to the king of His divine justice and his righteousness so the people will be judged fairly.  To pray that the leader will be just and compassionate is to pray that he will be an ideal king.  It is a prayer for moral security for the people.

          Israel’s prosperity and happiness depended upon the righteousness of her kings.  Josiah’s reform in 621 B.C. was the beginning of a period of prosperity.

          The ideal president will be both the symbol and vehicle of the righteous principles which assure the security of the people of America.  Our president must be the symbol of moral security and should bring to his office justice and compassion.

          As we pray for the president, let us as God to give to him of His divine justice and His divine compassion so that we may enjoy divine peace in America!

          Moral security will include equal opportunity for all Americans regardless of race, creed, or social standing.  The black American looks to the president of a life of equal rights and opportunity.  The Jewish American looks to the president for a life of freedom from fear.  The poor American looks to the president for a life of freedom from want.   All America looks to the president for moral security.  We must pray that the president will be enabled to provide that moral security

II. PRAY THAT THE PRESIDENT WILL PROVIDE SOCIAL SECURITY (VV 5-7)

          The King of Israel was the government.  The longer the king lived, the more stable the social structure of Israel became.  The classes became more clearly defined.  The religious parties were stabilized.  A citizen of Israel felt more secure in the reign that lasted.  The poet prayed for a long and beneficent reign for his king, “May he be like the rain that falls on mown grass…”  The poet’s prayer was that all society would benefit from the just and righteous reign of Israel’s king.

Our government does not depend upon one man.  Ours is a government of laws, not of men.  This was demonstrated in the way the presidency was passed to Lyndon Johnson when John Kennedy died.  This was demonstrated when the presidency passed to Gerald Ford when Nixon resigned.  Each time a new president is elected and takes office and the torch is passed, the government continues--it is a government of laws!

          Our prayer for the president is that he will be able to maintain in effect those laws which give us social security.

III. PRAY THAT HIS ADMINISTRATION WILL PROVIDE INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL SECURITY (VV. 8-14).

The psalmist impresses upon the king that a reign of justice and righteousness will bring international influence.  This is not a plea for world conquest; it is a prayer that the entire world will benefit from his just rule.  There were those nomads in the desert of Israel and Judea who would not be ruled by anyone and there were kings of remote areas who paid homage to no other king. The poet prayed that these unruled ones would be influenced and would accept the king’s rule. 

          The office of the President of the United States of America has enjoyed a history of prestige among nations since the days of George Washington.  In recent times, the office has been that of World Leader.  As the symbol of America and the vehicle of international policy to the world, the presidency is the symbol and vehicle of international security to us in America.  Pray for our president that his prestige and esteem will permeate all the world and that all men everywhere will benefit from the justice and righteousness of America.

IV. PRAY THAT HIS ADMINISTRATION WILL PROVIDE ECONOMIC SECURITY (VV. 15-17).

          The psalmist prays that the king may prosper and this prosperity may come in the form of life, gold, prayers, and fame.  But verse 16 indicates his real desire for the nation:  that there be prosperity in the land.  He asks for much grain and many men.  It appears that this means much food and good health among the people so they will be able to multiply.

Television News commentators and analysts give the impression that our economy is on the verge of collapse.  Food prices have increased, to be sure, and inflation is still, with us but, nevertheless, we are the world’s most prosperous nation.  The problems of the economy must be solved by the joint efforts of the president and congress.  The adversarial relationship between the two has always been counterproductive and in the recent budget struggles it has been disgraceful and crippling.

 

          There must be a non-partisan, pro-America approach to solving our economic problems.  Problems which will become much worse as the war in Afghanistan drains our coffers.  It may be that if we pray that this president will be able to provide economic security--that the poor, the needy, the aged, the oppressed, the hungry, the unwanted will all enjoy an unknown era of security from want--he may be able to overcome the opposition of congress and institute programs which will bring prosperity to the land.

CONCLUSION:

          We cannot stress the need to pray for the president too much.  A prayer for him is a prayer for security:  moral security, social security, international security, and economic security. Christians believe that the security we seek can only come from God.  We must ask God to give to our leaders the wisdom which will cause them to be just and compassionate.  We must ask God to give them health so that this will be a strong and beneficent administration.   We must ask God to lead our leaders so that our president can lead in world affairs.  We must ask God to give them economic programs which will bring us prosperity. 

          We believe that God wants us to have all these blessings.  We believe that our government is responsible, to a great extent, for providing these blessings.  The message is that we should expect that God can bless us through our government--through our president.

          Once, in a large church in Texas, the deacons and elders met to plan a strategy which would force the resignation of the pastor.  Rumors had persisted that some irregularities existed in his ministry.  Most of the diaconate were in favor of the action but one deacon was hesitant, “You know, I can’t really want to fire this man.  You see, I just realized that I have never prayed for him or his ministry.  Why don’t we try praying for him and see if that improves his ministry?”  It did!  That pastor led that church for many years and was considered by his parishioners and by his associates to be one of the truly great ministers of the last century.

It may be that our prayers really will improve a president.  I believe that they will.  The president serves by our pleasure, but according to God’s pleasure.  Our prayer for security shall not fall on deaf ears.  God will bless and our days shall be long upon this land which God has given us. 

         

          O Lord, our Heavenly Father, you have given us freedom in this great land.  You have created us a bit lower than deity, you see and know all things and nothing is hid from you.  We come to you for our president, chosen to lead us.  Lord, we are a people who deserve nothing because of our intrinsic worth but by the grace shown to us by you have inherited a nation greatest among nations.  May our nation continue to be great and may our president lead us to even greater days.

          To this end, Lord, we ask that we be forgiven of our sins and cleansed from unrighteousness and that our nation’s government be likewise forgiven and cleansed.  Give the president strength and wisdom, O Lord, make him your servant so that we will be secure.  Amen.